Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) urged airline passengers Sunday to not purposefully slow down airport security lines by refusing to go through body scanners.

Likely the next House Transportation Committee chairman, Mica said he could not support what has become known as National “Opt-Out” Day. During the busy Thanksgiving travel period, passengers may opt-out of the body scanners, which take naked body images, and instead choose to go under invasive pat-downs as an act of protest. That will then likely slow down security lines.

“I think the public needs to work with us. We will get it right,” Mica said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I’m not going to support that but we need to get it right and we will.”

Mica stepped up his criticism against John Pistole, the TSA Administrator, but he became one of the first prominent Republicans to basically take the side of the security state against the public. By contrast, Bennie Thompson (D-MS), current chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, called on Pistole to reconsider the abusive pat-down procedures.

Now, Mica’s long-term goal is to get the TSA out of the transportation screening business. He wants to leverage public anger against “gate-rape” (h/t Marcy) to basically privatize the operation. I haven’t met anyone who thinks that would lead to a kinder and gentler security procedure, however. Mica and his cadres don’t really want to end the security state – they want to profit from it. Some of the civil libertarians in their midst may have different ideas, but when push comes to shove, their principles are being used by establishment Republicans to 1) hurt President Obama’s TSA and 2) legislate it out of existence, with private security taking over at airports.

Pistole has dug in, and he’s saying he won’t change the procedures. The executive branch has basically backed him up. But Mica’s plea to end Opt Out Day has been the first misstep on the part of Republicans, who up until now have played this pretty well. Democrats were slow to criticize the TSA procedures and some continue to defend them. But this has started to move into an establishment-grassroots fight rather than a right-left one.

By the way, Nick Baumann’s story on five more intelligent security procedures that airports could use in the post-”Don’t touch my junk” era is well worth reading.

57 Responses
to “Mica Begs Passengers Not to Opt Out of Porno Scanners”

I only ever fly the 1850 miles to New Orleans from Sacramento. If there was another way to get there reasonably then I would take it. The time for building a functional train system was about 50 years ago. Maybe we could stimulate the economy with a complete overhaul………oh never mind.

Actually, Pistole didn’t say he “won’t change the procedures.” What he told Congress was that he wasn’t going to “change the policy.” Which shows he has a fundamental misconception of the role of a political appointee atop an executive branch department: he doesn’t MAKE policy, he executes it.

Another petty tyrant making our lives miserable. Why not bring on President Bloomberg and go full-throttle?

I’m not going through the porno-scanner for health reasons. I also don’t plan to be passively groped. And I don’t think paying for a ticket on an airline is any more a ‘privilege’ than paying for a gallon of milk at the local grocer. My cash is good at both — unless we are totally fucked. I’m appalled that a majority of American citizens think this grope-a-thon is A-Okay. Every right we give up is one we’ll never see again. I will not be complicit in the trashing of the 4th Amendment.

I want to see a poll of the flying public, not the 80% who cower in mid-America terrified of anything Mooslim but who hardly ever get on a plane. I know I won’t like the screening, so I’m opting out, but I can’t wait to see those numbers plunge by a week from today.

We go every two years to see my brother and his wife, who’ve lived there for years. Always flown previously, but this year I’m closer enough to try the train. I’m sure Amtrak will have its downside, but at least it’s an adventure. Of sorts.

And the so-called “fix” for this problem isn’t going to fix anything. I believe Republican lawmakers urged states to “opt-out” of letting the government do it and go with private companies, and I believe Florida has already started the process.

The only thing that’s going to do is result in you being porno scanned and groped by people working for a private company rather than by people working for the government.

Yeah, sure, I’ll feel a whole lot better knowing it wasn’t the government that raped me, instead it was a corporation.

Instead of opting out of the radiation exposure or enduring a humiliating body search, why don’t people simply refuse to fly?
What are your priorities, preserving (what’s left) of your privacy, or visiting Aunt Mildred?
If you have business, tell your company that you’ll take a train or a long drive, but won’t submit to humiliation or potential radiation induced health problems.
If enough people stand up to this bullshit, the airlines will scream bloody murder and other methods “to protect us” will be found.
Start by following the Israeli screening procedure.
It seems to work for them.

I’m so glad you’re going to see family, and what a plus to be close enough to travel by none groping. I wish you all a fabulous holiday.
The groping thing will come back to grope them. I hope. not in a good way.

I think after next week when a larger cross-section of the casual traveling public sees and experiences the grope, not so many will be so keen about it. With such large travel days on Tuesday and Wed, I think the worst of TSA will come out as well resulting in a possible meltdown.

By the way, Pistole backed down later today and basically mimicked Hillary’s expression of “working to make the process as uninvasive as possible”.

Agreed. Except politicians with security are now exempt. Is that elected officials, or just anyone like Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin. Now that they’ve opened the barn door, just watch who gets waved around the security station.

Maybe someone has done it already. If so I’ve missed the news, but if it hasn’t happened someone should pull a “Slap Shot.” Do a striptease for these sickos. Make the humiliation go both ways. Sure they’ll claim you’ve committed some crime but the reality is that you’d only be doing what they demand of you.

The finishing touch should be a goatse. Goatse for Obama. He demands it of America. No one deserves a goatse more.

Thanks, Sharkbabe, for recognizing your momentary insensitivity. What’s so upsetting is that it appears that many citizens are willing to give up their 4th Amendment rights for some ridiculous notion of ‘safety’ — when, in fact, no such safety is supported by these intrusive searches. Little by little, citizens seem willing to give up their privacy with absolutely NO proof (or even minimal support) for the grovernment grab-a-thon. Sheeple, indeed. Sickening.

When my mother was dying from cancer (this year) we had her brought by medical transport to where most of the family lived, so that we could be with her. Before that many of us spent entire days traveling to where she was living. Common sense works well for situations like this.

What ticks me off is that I’m just a granny who travels between Santa Barbara and Montana to see my daughter and her family and between LA and Cape Cod to see my sister. I shouldn’t trigger any searches. But if my number comes up, I get groped. It’s insane and it’s illegal, in my opinion. If some stranger grabbed my labia on the street, I’d deck ‘em. Why should I let someone do it at the airport? Reasonable cause! For god’s sake.

Thanks Mary,
None of these decisions (when to go, when to wait) are easy when the end of a parents life is involved. I’m glad my traveling was done before the “new security” regime was fully in place. I’m now in a position where I can “just say no” to flying.

The new company, to be renamed Clear, will be based in New York. Mr. LaPenta and Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, will sit on its board.
[..]
Ms. Seidman-Becker said that the fee for the new service would be $179 a year, down from $200, and that subscribers could buy a family plan for an additional $50.

They understand profit. If Airlines are hit in the pocket then this company will go away again. Don’t fly, but at the least, make a pain in the ass of yourself.

No offense taken. There are places I’d like to visit, but not enough to want to go through the TSA burlesque.
I know someone who flew to Rome for a seminar; he said their security then – this was in the mid-80s – was a lot tighter than ours. They asked questions like ‘was your luggage ever out of your sight’ and ‘did anyone give you anything to take onto the plane’.

Of course Mica and the other Republicans want to get rid of the TSA and go back to pre-9/11 privatized screening. The whole reason we have the TSA is because Karl Rove wanted to create a Federal agency that used the pretext of “national security” to justify being set up outside of normal Federal Civil Service regulations — and to specifically make it impossible for unions to be formed. Once started, TSA and the other Homeland Security agencies were going to be the union-busting trendsetters. But things didn’t work out that way, and the TSA itself is now on the verge of unionizing, so of course the Republicans don’t like it any more.

See how “terrified” Mica is of a disruption and an uprising of sorts? I don’t understand why progressives don’t take note of things like this and do more peaceful civil disobedience, peaceful marches and such. We don’t use the power that we have, and we’re paying the price for it.

One other point, that I doubt Rove didn’t consider then, but would undoubtedly countenance today. A private TSA with enhanced capacity to check people even before they got the airport (because you never know) would be a private state in and of itself. Perfect Brownshirt organization. We are not that far off from where we are heading.

Therefore, what everyone wants to see is the video of grandma standing in her diaper with her artificial breasts in her hand while leaning on her cane.

Police have cameras in their cruisers. There are cameras watching prisoners in their cells. There must be cameras in those private strip search room, to protect officers from allegations. Video coming to your local utube soon.